Fantino to Public: Stay Out of Police Affairs

As if the death of Robert Dzienkanski at the hands of RCMP didn't put the public's perception of Canadian police officers in jeopardy already. Rather than admitting what it was -- a careless abuse of power -- and distancing themselves from the incident (however dishonest that would be), the RCMP have taken to defending it as a matter of due course. It is apparently part of officer training to interpret raising two hands in the air as saying "go to hell", as it is to assume that four officers can't restrain a man with a stapler without recourse to a weapon. Oh yeah, and Dzienkanski "directly disregarded a command", which begs the question of how someone who doesn't speak English is supposed to regard a command in the first place.

Now OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino -- whose dark imprint left on Toronto as the city's Police Chief can be seen here -- has taken to deriding the public for questioning the incident. He sneeringly dismissed criticism from those who "could never pass recruitment training", perhaps because ordinary people wouldn't be able to bring themselves to taser a confused Polish immigrant five times. The message is clear: issues involving police treatment of the public need to be handled within the force. Perhaps someone should tell Fantino that the concept of accountability and third-party monitoring is the backbone of a democratic society.